


Just in time for Tea

by ximeria



Series: 2013 March Writing Exercises [5]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 1960s, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, Dubious Ethics, Escape, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 22:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/740670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ximeria/pseuds/ximeria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles looked through the one-way mirror. He had to work fast, or they might lose their window of opportunity.</p><p>His cover was going to be blown anyway, and although both Hank and Emma would have his head for not having gotten out hours, if not days ago, Charles couldn't just <i>leave</i> without saving one last soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just in time for Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aeshna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeshna/gifts).



> The story diverges from canon as mutants have been known before the storyline of XMFC. There are facilities where they play loose and fast with ethics and people's rights.

Charles looked through the one-way mirror. He had to work fast, or they might lose their window of opportunity.

His cover was going to be blown anyway, and although both Hank and Emma would have his head for not having gotten out hours, if not days ago, Charles couldn't just _leave_ without saving one last soul.

And what a soul it was, if the flicker of the mind was anything to go on. It had been a momentary glimpse, just for a second or two when they'd transferred their newest 'guest' from the van to the facility.

And then the dampening field had cut him off. As it always did. It was never a complete cut off for him, but his reach was always shortened in the extreme by it.

Normally Charles would rely on the files that came across his desk to let him know if the Facility was getting a new 'guest' and what said guest's future might look like.

Correction facilities if the poor bastard was lucky.

Military if their power could be used for offensive purposes.

Deportation, if they were a non-US citizen. And lucky

Disappearing, if they weren't lucky; if they were powerful and useful enough for the military to sit up and take notice. And there was a chance of them not being missed at home, of course. They would resurface months or a year later, new name, sometimes new face, collared and subdued.

Controlled.

This last one, the last one Charles could get out (and he was going to get a good verbal lashing when he got back to the base up north because he was risking his life for just one more mutant.) was powerful. And angry. Charles had felt the burst of power that moment; the howl of fury in the mind, just before the dampening field had cut it off.

They didn't know about Charles, or at least, the information hadn't made it as far as the guards at the door. Worst case scenario, it was a matter of any moment now, but he still managed to slip inside the guard's head and tell him to let him in and then wipe the knowledge from the soldier's mind. There was nothing he could do about the cameras, not with the dampening field limiting his powers as much as it did. He was down to having to have his victim in view to be able to use his power.

To think the ones running the Facility thought the dampening field took care of all mutations, no matter how strong.

Pride and arrogance seemed to walk hand in hand here - much to Charles' luck.

The guards at the inner door to the cells let him through without any words. Of course, someone would notice on the cameras and Charles probably wouldn't make it out alive.

But he still had to try.

He knew what he looked like to the guards, which played in his favor as well. Short, young; an egghead. This close he caught all those impressions and it was an image he had carefully cultivated just for such situations.

He was in luck when he came to the cell holding the new inmate. He check the file on the clipboard by the door.

Name: Lehnsherr, Erik.  
Citizenship: West-German  
Age: 34  
Power: Metal manipulation  
Power level: 4-5  
Danger level: 9

Charles smirked at the power level. The facility was obviously wrong. The burst he'd caught during the transfer had indicated at least 8 or 9.

Then again, underestimation might play in their favor. If he could convince the man that he was a friend. Or at least a viable option for getting out.

Charles knew he had limited time once he stepped inside. The cameras would spot him and with the dampening field limiting his powers, he would have trouble reaching Lehnsherr from the door.

Still, he had to try. Worming his way inside Lehnsherr's mind was... a bit like dealing with a thorny bush. Or barbed wire.

_'NO!'_

Charles reeled and clenched his teeth. _'Friend, get you out of here, not much time.'_

The shouted voice in his head subsided like a sudden drop in the wind in the middle of a hurricane.

Distrust rolled back at him, and Charles focused harder. Conveying what he was, why he was there and what they had to do.

The distrust barely wavered.

 _'Suit yourself, you arse,'_ Charles spat back at him. _'You'll never get out, they'll never let you go!'_ He'd meant to sound angry, but he knew with the tiredness and overexertion of his power, the last sentence came out more worried and defeated than angry.

Feeling a reluctant agreement from Lehnsherr, Charles finally opened the door using the code he'd filched from the minds of the guards. While he'd had access to a lot of the Facility as the resident psychologist, the high security cells were not part of his access area.

Undoing the straps, Charles took a good look at the man he was risking his life for. Any other time and place and he'd allow himself to linger, because damn, he was exactly Charles' type. Big, tall and broody - or in this case severely pissed off.

Not that Charles could blame him.

"Cameras, mics, no time to talk," Charles whispered. He already had a raging headache from working through the dampening field, and he had the feeling that this chap was more at ease with words than thoughts.

A slow nod in agreement and then Lehnsherr was on his feet, staggering two steps. "Let's go," he said gruffly.

Charles grinned. "My intention most sincerely."

Slipping back out the way they came, Charles suggested the guards look elsewhere, but they had barely made it around the outside corner of the building before the alarms went off.

"How are you at scaling fences?" Charles asked breathlessly as they ran for the perimeter fences. All horribly tall and lined with barbed wire on top. At least they were outside the dampening field, and Charles' headache was letting up, even if it wasn't going away altogether.

Lehnsherr laughed behind him and to Charles' surprise and delight, the fences peeled themselves off to the sides..

"As I am with vehicles with plenty of metal," Lehnsherr continued and Charles turned to watch him sweep the jeeps with soldiers coming for them aside with a wave of his hand.

Out in the open with no restrictions on his powers, Charles grabbed Lehnsherr's wrist and ran, weaving through the minds of the soldiers, telling them that they were searching in the wrong direction.

"They're turning away," Lehnsherr said, sounding surprised and barely out of breath.

"They think we went in the opposite direction," Charles gasped, leading Lehnsherr across to where the grassy field gave way to trees. The cameras mainly pointed into the compound and wouldn't be of any help to their pursuers. "We need to go north," he said. "I know the general direction, but..."

"So far we're good," Lehnsherr said gruffly.

Charles wanted to ask how he could tell, his curiosity surfacing, but he was busy casting his mind out as a net to make sure that they would avoid detection.

They were both woefully lacking coats to ward off the chill, but running did help keep warm and Charles knew where to get clothes. Just a few more hours northward...

Charles was at least a little better dressed than Lehnsherr, who was only in his shirtsleeves. Even if the lab coat and cardigan underneath meant little with the chill wind blowing from the north.

He hoped they wouldn't freeze to death before they made their first stop.

They would get to a barn along the way. Charles knew where it was, but normally he'd go there to restock what refugees would need by road. Not through woodland.

"Can you feel metal from a distance?" Charles suddenly asked, an idea taking shape in his mind.

"Yes?" Lehnsherr replied, eying him curiously.

"We're looking for a barn, and I remember there being a lot of old farm equipment in there - a lot of it metal."

Lehnsherr nodded slowly. Closing his eyes, he frowned.

Charles could feel the wave of raw power coming off him, but it was as if only a fraction of it was making it through - like water overflowing a funnel.

 _'May I?'_ Charles asked, touching his temple.

Lehnsherr opened his eyes and shot him a wary look.

"I can possibly help you focus," Charles said, placatingly holding up his hands. Now if he was right, maybe the principles of echolocation would work here.

Lehnsherr nodded slowly.

Charles let his own calm seep into Lehnsherr's rigid control and sent his power out in a short burst.

Lehnsherr's gasp told Charles that they had hit pay dirt.

"Interesting technique," was all Lehnsherr said drily.

Charles grinned at him, expectantly.

Lehnsherr pointed off a little further to the east than Charles had expected, but he gladly followed his lead.

The barn was just that. Old, abandoned, full of scrap metal. But it also served as a midway station for the underground movement helping mutants escape.

There were clothes hidden, canned food. All below the floor; underneath the straw.

"Impressive," Lehnsherr said.

"It's what we do," Charles said tiredly, rubbing his temple.

"You blew your cover back there," Lehnsherr said shrewdly.

"It was blown anyway," Charles said with a sigh. "I was supposed to be halfways to the Canadian border by now."

"Then why aren't you?" Lehnsherr asked curiously as he slowly ate the contents of the can he'd opened by simply curling the metal off the top.

Charles looked down into his own can of ...well, it was supposed to be ham and mushroom soup... maybe.

"I was about to leave when I caught the impression of your mind, as they transferred you. No one was supposed to come through today, and I couldn't just leave you there."

"Why not?"

Charles watched Lehnsherr watching him back. They were on the run, he might as well trust the man with some information.

"I and a few others work on getting as many mutants out of the facilities around the US as we can. A nearly impossible task, but we have to try."

Lehnsherr watched him in silence. "There was a dampening field in the facility."

Charles didn't even have to skim Lehnsherr's surface thoughts to know what he was aiming at. "I'm powerful enough to work through it if I really focus - but it'll leave me with a raging headache." Not to mention roiling stomach, but possibly the canned food wasn't helping either..

"So, where are we heading?"

"North, across the border. Canada is a lot more lenient when it comes to mutants," Charles explained. They really needed contacts within in the government - as they might just be postponing their own capture. There was no guarantee that the Canadian government would stand up for them.

Lehnsherr nodded slowly and Charles could tell that he was debating something internally. He could easily eavesdrop, but he got the impression that Lehnsherr wouldn't appreciate this.

"How much do you know about me?" Lehnsherr suddenly asked.

"What the file at the door said," Charles admitted. "Level, powers, name, citizenship."

"West-German," Lehnsherr said.

Charles nodded.

"That's been a while," he said with a smirk. "These days I live and work in the UK, for the government."

Charles stared at him in surprise.

"On loan to the Canadian government to investigate quite a few missing people cases. Or rather...," he paused for a moment. 

"Missing mutants?" Charles finished for him.

Lehnsherr grinned mirthlessly. Then his eyes narrowed and the grin became downright calculating.

"Am I right in thinking that you and your... band of freedom fighters?" He waited for Charles to nod his agreement. "That you have a lot of information - names, locations etc?"

Charles realized where he was heading. "You want us to come out of hiding and help the government?"

"It's not just the Canadian and British governments who are looking into these disappearances," Lehnsherr said quietly. "I have contacts throughout several European countries; Asian as well. The US might think they're going under the radar, but they've gotten sloppy the past six months. More and more non-US citizens have gone missing here. So someone sat up and took notice - and obviously didn't like what it looked like when they started digging."

"Would we be safe?" Charles thought of his friends, of the children, of the people they had helped in the past.

"Unless US invades its neighbor," Lehnsherr said drily. "And I'm not sure even the US is stupid enough to pull something like that."

Safe.

"But the job's not done," Charles said softly. He looked down in surprise when he found Lehnsherr removing the can from Charles' fingers with a twitch of his hand, and then taking Charles's freezing hands in his own, surprisingly warm and large ones.

"The job will never be done," Lehnsherr said quietly. He let go of Charles for a moment and pulled up his own sleep.

Charles stared at the tattooed numbers. For a moment he didn't understand, then realization dawned.

"Oh."

"As long as there are idiots out there who think genetic cleansing is the way to go, I know what I have to do," Lehnsherr told him, taking his hands again. "And so do you, am I right?"

Charles nodded slowly. The possibilities were numerous all of the sudden. Where they had thought Canada tolerant, maybe the tolerance went further than that. Maybe the world itself wouldn't just look the other way. With the right information in the right places...

"We'll be crossing the border in a few days' time," Charles said, working through the plan. He almost added 'just in time for tea,' but possibly that would have been too glib. "We'll meet with my friends. We might even be able to get picked up before the border if we're lucky."

"I'll meet with your friends," Lehnsherr told him, earnestly. "And then I need to get in touch with Department H. There are people there who need to know what's going on, what's happened."

Charles nodded. "Yes." So many possibilities. The fact that they weren't fighting this fight alone.

"You're not alone in this," Lehnsherr said, squeezing Charles' hands.

For a moment Charles thought the other man might be a telepath as well, then felt heat flush his face. "I projected that one, didn't I?"

Lehnsherr laughed, a surprisingly lovely sound.

"You're tired. Get some rest before we go further."

Charles let himself slip down to lie in the hay. A little reluctantly he let Lehnsherr's hands slip from his.

A moment later, Lehnsherr lay down next to him, a nice, warm presence. And again he took Charles' hand.

Hopefully that last thing was the only thing he'd projected.

A low chuckle next to him left him with very little hope of that.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt/Idea/Inspiration: Watching Dark Matters there was a segment on a medical experiment carried out in the states on syphilis patients - all African Americans and none of them were told during the time what they were under observation for. Nor were they given the antidote when this was discovered. And the experiment carried on years after the US and several other countries signed the Nuremberg Code (a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation set as a result of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War).
> 
> This takes place somewhere in the mid-60s. The US army and segments of the government have facilities around the country, dealing with the 'mutant problem'. Mutants have been known for longer than in canon, meaning these facilities have a great range of technology developed simply to subdue/control mutants. War breeds technological advances - fear must do the same.
> 
> I make no pointers to whether or not Erik's found Shaw on his own and dealt with him. But his nazi hunting days have turned to taking what work appeals to him. Hence, in this one, he works for the UK government. In the UK and a few other European countries, mutants aren't hated or feared on the level that they are in the US. I'm with Smitty, regarding an old online conversation we had; "There has to be a band in the UK where the drummer has six arms. Seriously. How cool would that be? And how treasured would this mutation and many others be?"
> 
> **Excerpt from the Nuremberg Code:**
> 
> _The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him/her to make an understanding and enlightened decision._


End file.
